In large sedimentary basins with uneven surface, terrain induced groundwater circulation creates different scales of cycles, therefore different length of flowlines. What is the longest and how is it determined?
I did not know that thee is a world championship of flow line length ;-)
However my guess would be in the Great Artesian Basin in Australia
http://www.gisera.org.au/publications/factsheets/gab-hydrology.pdf
Dear Colleagues,
Thanks for your quick responses with answers to my question. Anders, share your views, but the kind of flow system in the GAB is something I am referring to in this question. Thomas, do you have a measure of the flowline? I don't find a horizontal scale in the figure, which shows circultation depth of 3000 meters. Ken, do you have a reference for the Dakota case?
Sorry no reference. But considering that the GAB is one of the if not the largest aquifer system, there should be something in the literature
If one only considers the topographic difference, which is a way to express gravity forcing, the longest line would be that from the top of Himalayas to the bottom of Marianas Trench. It has not been studied yet.
Dear Kenneth,
It is a good point that you made. In reality groundwater flowlines should be limited to basin scale, though there may exist trans-basin flow of groundwater through fault systems in exceptional cases. How long is the flowline in the Dakota aquifer?
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